There's No Stopping St.thomas

GIRLS' STATE 5A SOCCER

TALLAHASSEE — St. Thomas saved its best game of the year for the most important one, dominating Sarasota 5-0 in the 5A girls' soccer championship Saturday to win a seventh consecutive state title.

"This is something that we worked very hard for all season," St. Thomas coach Carlos Giron said. "I knew the girls could do it. It was a just matter of getting it done. This was the best time to do it."

The championship was the Raiders' eighth overall since 1990. St. Thomas has outscored its opponents 12-0 in the last two title games. St. Thomas already owns five national high school soccer records and needs one more state title to tie the national record of eight consecutive held by Denville Morris Catholic (N.J.) from 1988-95.

The score was no indication of the Raiders' dominance. It certainly could have been much worse. The Raiders took 17 shots, many of them on target, forcing Sarasota keeper Alexia Baus to make 10 saves.

Sarasota didn't manage a shot on goal against the Raiders.

"We tried our best," Sarasota coach Bechir Ben Moussa said. "We came here as underdogs, but we also came here to win. St. Thomas] was all over the ball, never allowing us a chance to get into the game.

"In a certain way they are a great team, by the way they handled the ball. They did it collectively with no individuals."

Sarasota was depleted by injuries, with top scorer Cassy Morril out with a broken leg and sweeper Sarah Toale playing with an injured knee. Late in the game Aspen Mankowsky injured her lower back and was taken to the hospital.

A reflection of the collective effort was the Raiders' last goal, scored on what the players called the "Pinball Play."

Jennifer Garcia pushed a free kick into the center of the penalty box to Megan Farrell. She one-touched the ball to an open Vanessa Illanes, who struck the ball for her third goal of the game and 35th of the season.

"We worked on that play all year," Illanes said. "We hadn't tried it all year. I picked the perfect spot and put it away. It was the first time we tried it and it worked well."

Illanes scored her first goal of the match with 11:31 left in the first half. Caroline Owen sent the ball to Illanes, who powered a left-footed shot inside the right post for her 33rd goal.

"We wanted to dominate the game from the beginning," Illanes said. "We had control of the game from the start. We came out strong and played like we're supposed to play."

The Raiders (28-1-2) kept pressuring the Sailors (23-3), forcing a turnover by defender Tiffany Toale just outside the penalty box. Garcia capitalized on the steal, blasting a shot into the upper-left portion of the goal for a 2-0 lead.

"In the beginning of the year we struggled a little," Garcia said. "We had been trying to get together because we lost a lot of players. We worked so much harder at the end. We knew we had to work hard. Everything came together today. We did things that we never thought we had in ourselves. We gave it all we had and it worked out."

The second half was a continuation of the first as the Raiders scored three more times.

Owen sent a cross to Lauren Hager, who beat a Sarasota defender into the box to score her 25th goal with 27:35 left. Moments later Illanes added her second of the game for a 4-0 lead. She would add a fifth as time wound down.

"We just came out really pumped up," Owen said. "We wanted to win and go out with a bang. We wanted to play like we knew we could as a team, because this year we hadn't been playing up to our best. I think we did this game.''

And what about an eighth consecutive championship?

"That's next year," Giron said. "We'll just have to work hard like we did this year. But for now we just want to enjoy this win."